Middle East Reality Check

The humanitarian and strategic disaster of Syria should focus Catholic minds on the hard fact that there is no easy or quick path to peace in the Middle East, a very dangerous part of the world where Christians of all persuasions are at daily risk of their lives.

Two recently published books will help those eager to get beyond media sound bites, wishful thinking and vague pieties in order to think seriously about the realities that must be faced in a region with too little geography and too much history, where religiously inspired passion too often leads to murder.

I’ve read a lot of books on the Middle East and its sorrows, but none quite like Lela Gilbert’s Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel Through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner (Encounter Books). Gilbert, an American who came to Israel for a visit and stayed for six years, is a writer of broad human sympathies whose compassion for the panorama of men and women she describes is obvious.

Yet that compassion never causes her to lose her grasp of realities that cannot be denied — such as, for example, the reality from which her book takes its title: the radical Islamist slogan "On Saturday we kill the Jews. On Sunday we kill the Christians."

Gilbert knows that what she calls the "Islamist culture of death" kills Muslims as well as Jews and Christians, and she grieves for her Muslim friends and their wretched political leadership. At the same time, she is a frank admirer of what the state of Israel has accomplished under unprecedented conditions.

Her narrative concludes with a citation from an introduction to the collected letters of Col. Jonathan (Yoni) Netanyahu, who died rescuing hostages at Entebbe in 1976; the introduction was written by the distinguished novelist Herman Wouk and is worth pondering for all those who would be morally serious about the Middle East today:

"Yoni loathed war and fighting. ... Because he had to fight to save his nation’s life, he made himself into a great fighting man. But he knew, as all men of sense know, that war today is … not a practical political technique. He was philosopher enough to understand this truth, that so long as villains and maniacs would egg on and arm young Arabs to destroy Israel, he would have to be a soldier; and that if he had to he would die fighting for the Return and for peace."

Elliott Abrams’ study, Tested by Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Cambridge University Press), offers a detailed account of foreign policy-making as daily grind leavened by high drama.

It ought to be required reading for diplomats in training around the world — not excluding the men now studying at Rome’s Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the institutional incubator of those who will represent the Holy See in nunciatures and apostolic delegations in more than 180 countries.

Throughout his service in the George W. Bush administration, Abrams pressed the strategic argument that the best thing the U.S. could do for Israeli-Palestinian peace was to disempower the men of terrorism, while supporting those Palestinians who were building the civil-society infrastructure of a future Palestinian state.

For a while, that strategy seemed to win the day, and a measure of progress was made. But then, in President Bush’s second term, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others who imagined that a "final status" agreement could be hammered out in relatively short order won the internal argument in the U.S. government — and failed, as all such attempts to accelerate a "peace process" will fail, absent a vital, vibrant and prosperous Palestinian civil society capable of sustaining a peaceful and democratic Palestinian state.

Abrams’ book opens a window into the human dimension of high-stakes diplomacy; biographers of George W. Bush, Ariel Sharon and others will find in Tested by Zion a lot of material with which to work.

Above all, however, Tested by Zion is a work of great moral and political seriousness by a morally serious man who knows that the meaning of "morality," especially in world politics, is not exhausted by good intentions.

Underdeveloped African countries will not do a lot in the end to boost his ‘world image.’ I’m not feeling so good about about the Pope’s ‘hi visibility’ piety.

Posted by Doug O on Monday, Oct 28, 2013 8:00 PM (EST):

Where is the outrage and moral indignation for the millions who have died in the civil wars of African nations. They are still dying every day. Even Pope Francis prays for the people of Syria without a word for Africans, mostly black, who are living and dying in horrid conditions. Why??

Posted by Tom in AZ on Monday, Oct 28, 2013 3:39 PM (EST):

@Rudolph S. Daldin: Not even the worst of the Europeans’ treatment of the New World aborigines justified the kind of cruelty practiced by groups like the Comanche (who did the same things to other Natives, besides). Do you actually know any of the FACTS involved—tell me the literal translations of the Apache words for “war” and “raiding”, please, and what was different about the two practices in their culture—or are you just PC guilt-tripping?
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The other fact of the matter is that, even with “foreign militaries” on the ground, the War on Terror has, directly AND indirectly, caused only a little over 1 million deaths. In 11 years. That’s the same body count as Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s 1592 invasion of Korea, and that only lasted 6 years. Is “late 16th-century death rate”—or rather, HALF of one—something 21st century militaries should be horrified by?

Posted by Robert A.Rowland on Monday, Oct 28, 2013 2:12 PM (EST):

APO’: Christianity and Islam are indeed antithetical. There is no common ground and dialogue between them is impossible. The violent Muslims follow the Koran.

Posted by Saber Walsh on Monday, Oct 28, 2013 7:43 AM (EST):

I think it’s important to begin with a simple statement: from the time of earliest recorded history, including biblical accounts of the people Israel during their formative years, anyone who thinks that laying down arms and saying, “Peace!” will result in people who have sworn their lives to kill you will result in them saying, “Awwww, you’re really a good person, come get a hug!!!” is delusional. These folks need to return “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” to the library, stop listening to their new age cassettes, and wake up to reality because the people who do wish us harm are now pretty much everywhere around us.

This is such an important topic for today, and even more so as we see anti-Christian movements within our own country, in and out of our government. Nobody really likes conflict, and those who fight war in reality hate it the most. And yet our foreign policies seem to continue to support those who hate us the most, with a domestic policy that seems to be no different.

One of the most provocative reasons I have heard for why Christians are at the top of the list is because the fall of Soviet Russia was considered to be, in a large part, because the people of the Orthodox Church would not give up their faith, and it was through their desire for freedom of religion (now at risk in America, thank you) that partially fed the groundswell of people in Russia wanting change.

I don’t know if that’s true, but the first step to creating a centrally powerful, authoritarian government is to wipe out religion. Since we do not have a state sponsored religion in the U.S., then ridicule, Christian-on-Christian conflict, and ACLU-style lawsuits to cleans the eye from all visual forms of religion becomes the new style of the day. That’s not America, and I pray it never becomes that in spite of the dark work of some very, very dedicated elitists.

I cannot think of a better time for Christians and Jews to come together in defense of their freedoms, safety, and faiths. Also, it’s time for Muslims who seek peace and freedom for themselves to stand up with us. A

The 100th anniversary of the Muslim Brotherhood is in 2017, so we can expect violence and power-grabs to step up even further over the next few months, even here in America. Let’s all pray that we can get out of “amateur hour” in homeland security, foreign policy and diplomacy and make some true inroads to build trust and peace instead of arming those who are hoping to achieve their violent means to an end… our end.

Posted by james on Sunday, Oct 27, 2013 4:37 PM (EST):

RSD- You want me to believe this is simply about homelands! Was africa orginally in Christian hands or muslims? How far back to you go in history to find a never ending chain to blame. The indian tribes were fighting among themselves for territory before we ever landed. When muslims are not trying to blame Christians or Jews for all their issues they will find time to blame another muslim sect. Egypt was a perfect example of the illusion of Islams intent . As soon as Islamists took power in Egypt through democratic means they started dismantiling those institutions they did not like and rolling back the rights of minorities.

Its Sad but is seems that unless Muslims are being ruled by a very powerful military power the society goes into Chaos..

Posted by Michael W. Clemons on Sunday, Oct 27, 2013 3:34 PM (EST):

Bothers me no end to see Francis get fuzzy huggie with people that would love to cut his head off,,,and our heads too.

Posted by A P O'Beachain on Sunday, Oct 27, 2013 1:20 PM (EST):

RAR There are no intrinsically antithetical groups there; extremists antagonise each other and they have not learned from a lot of the world that has learned as the rabbi said in Fiddler on the Roof; eye for eye tooth for tooth will leave a lot of blind and toothless people. The original law from Hammurabi that was copied by the Leviticus book of the Hebrew Bible was designed to exact a similar penalty, not destroy the other; Israel and Islam could both re-learn that lesson

Posted by Robert A.Rowland on Sunday, Oct 27, 2013 12:51 PM (EST):

There will be no peace in the Middle East so long as antithetical entities exist in the world together.

Posted by A P O'Beachain on Sunday, Oct 27, 2013 12:04 PM (EST):

I know it is late but I cannot recall when I started asking why the US and her Allies ever thought that guns and drones bring peace and justice. Complete idiocy starting with SE Asia and ever since 32 K dollar a minute spent on arms when a fraction of it could fix all the roads and bridges and hospitals and schools and provided clean air and water and decent markets and food growing capacity for a world whose population could fit into Texas with a house and garden. Negative policies and fears of over-population and using war for peace belong to our tree-swinging clubbing women past.

Posted by Rudolph S. Daldin on Sunday, Oct 27, 2013 11:18 AM (EST):

Your review of books that make up Middle-East Reality, written by American born and educated authors,miss the mark of the realty of Middle-East people that have lost their homeland and all their earthly possessions to foreign military and political forces, much akin to the “driving out” the aboriginal first nations(tribes)from North America. If these people have a anger at Christians it it is because we Christians have seen these social autocracies and have not felt the pain they feel and are accused of “standing aside” while all this thievery was happening to their ancient homelands in the Middle East!

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